


Jerusalem

by deborah_judge



Category: Kingdom of Heaven (2005)
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-02-13
Updated: 2011-02-13
Packaged: 2017-10-15 15:36:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 832
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/162310
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deborah_judge/pseuds/deborah_judge
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They were the body and soul of Jerusalem.  Originally posted in 2005.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Jerusalem

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimers: I suppose these characters belong to history, but the movieverse versions of them belong to whoever made the movie. I'm not going to go anywhere near the question of who owns twelfth-century Jerusalem, but I'm glad it's not me. This is movie-based fanfic and I have made no attempt to be historically accurate.

The stones crumbled under her hands. The city walls were too weak, and soon they would fall. The Saracens will end this, will claim the city in their final victory. Beneath her, even the stones of Jerusalem were broken, stricken and ravaged like her brother's face.

Sibylla remembered the story of her people and their entrance into Jerusalem, when they followed the cross to the Holy Land from the farthest west. Knee-deep they walked in infidel bodies, drenching themselves with joyous shouts in the blood of Moslems and Jews. She felt the ache in the bones of Jerusalem, the burning pain in the rocks of her city. On the broken stone, her touch begged forgiveness with an unanswered prayer.

*

Once, a ghost rode out of Jerusalem. He wore white like a shroud, and a face-mask of silver. The people followed him. They believed in his presence, and in his peace. Dead, alive and unburied, Jerusalem doomed and incarnate, living for a moment in her brother's fragile skin.

Sibylla lined her eyes with kohl and painted her lips. She draped herself with fine silks and burnished gold. The people, she knew, would search beyond the ghost for a human body. Hers would have to suffice.

*

Balian's touch was deep and satisfying, and as a princess it was her due. His body was whole, his hands were gentle, and his skin was fair and unblemished. He believed he could be a knight, in this frail and guilty kingdom. He knelt before her brother with soft, wet eyes.

Even in childhood, there was nothing that Sibylla and her brother did not share. Jerusalem was theirs now, its streets and alleys their sacred kingdom, the infidel blood on its stones their sacred inheritance. Balian would be the perfect knight, and Jerusalem his lady-love. He touched her stones with yearning, and embraced her princess with hunger, and caught his breath at the veiled touch of her king.

She liked to imagine that Balian would go to him, at night, to find a way through sickness and bandages to touch, to feel bared skin and the certainty of life. Her lover's body was like the winter sun, giving warmth in greatest need. It did not frighten her to share this. Her brother under Balian's touch could be yearning, hopeful, alive.

It was possible, she supposed. They did meet in the evenings, and she would see neither until morning. But the disease is jealous and does not give back what it claims. She suspected that as night passed they only sat together, hand over cloth-covered hand, and spoke in whispers about Jerusalem.

*

Baldwin summoned her towards the end. She could smell the blood from under his mask, like corpses in a dying city. Even the throne could not support him.

"Guy must not become king," Baldwin said. Guy called for war, for the renewal of the cross-led battle. A caravan of infidels died in the desert, and her husband praised the attack. There is no shame in the slaying of Moslems.

If it was God's will, then it was not wrong, and this is not punishment. Not the helpless ache in the soul of her city. Not her brother's certain death.

"How will you stop him?" Sibylla asked. "The Pope may not grant an annulment."

"You know," said Baldwin. And, of course, she did. It would only be one life. Guy's ghost would not haunt her with her history. Guy's blood would not cry out to her from the earth. And if it did, Balian would comfort her.

"No," she said. "I will not consent to this." And must this be the only way? "If my husband seeks violence," Sibylla said, "then I will restrain him. Do you believe that I am weaker than you?"

"No," said Baldwin. "Only that you are not stronger."

And in the end it consumed him, of course, his face wrecked like his city, breached and ravaged like his city walls. And Guy sought violence, and Sibylla was not stronger.

Her hair cut, Sibylla knelt to the stones and prayed.

*

Jerusalem ended with a treaty. Saladin would take the city. The people's lives would be ransomed, if money could be found. This was the last deed of Balian, knight of Jerusalem.

If money was not found, there would be slavery and not death. This was the mercy of Saladin.

Balian asked her not to be a queen, but Jerusalem was in her blood. It flowed through her, asking her to remember. It would consume her, break and breach her until she fell with its walls. It was only her body that remained intact.

The stones of Jerusalem were dust under her hands, crumbling and empty, the remains of the once-living kingdom of those who followed the cross from the farthest west. Her walls were breached, and her people were gone. Even the stones were broken, where Sibylla kissed them, her tears falling on them, terrible and beautiful, broken and beloved like her brother's face.


End file.
